Obama as pro-abortion extremist?

None.

A good case can be made to the Lord in prayer, though, that He may in His mercy protect us from this man becoming president, on the basis of his support for partial birth abortion.

No case at all. I cannot see where helping to elect this man president is consistent with the 6th commandment. Our Presbyterian WCF Larger Catechism helps unfold the teaching on this (as do other reformed confessions). In my understanding, voting to elect Obama is tantamount to aiding and abetting murder–willfully and knowingly.

I would like to know what ‘change’ his campaign is alluding. I’m not sure I fully, or half-empty, know what the change is about.

I frankly lean toward Obama, in part because McCain is such a disturbing man. But Obama’s views on abortion bother me a great deal and may preclude me from voting for him. Obama’s views also bother Nat Hentoff, a wise, pro-life Democrat.

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/896416.html

Meanwhile, Les Prouty’s assertion that a vote for Obama is “tantamount to aiding and abetting murder–willfully and knowingly” is hyperbole, to be sure, but doesn’t his view that voters are complicit in the sins of those for whom they vote apply equally, if not more so, to G. W. Bush? Bush is the president, after all.
In a new book, ex-LA prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi presents the case for prosecuting Bush for murder for the multitudes killed because of his unjustified invasion of Iraq. Are those who voted for Bush, under Mr. Prouty’s theory, also culpable?

Abortion is horrible. But so is sending thousands to die in a war based on lies.

Sam, I don’t think my assertion is hyperbole. If the Westminster Confession I cited is a correct application of the 6th commandment (and I think it is) then I think I am on solid ground. Here is what WCF LC #135 says:

“A. The duties required in the sixth commandment are all careful studies, and lawful endeavors, to preserve the life of ourselves and others by resisting all thoughts and purposes, subduing all passions, and avoiding all occasions, temptations, and practices, which tend to the unjust taking away the life of any;”

Two points on the Bush comments. 1) Your assumption about the war being unjust is your (and others’) opinion. You may or may not be right. That has not been proved and is certainly debatable. The “based on lies” part is surely an assumption. But 2) even if it could be proved that Bush lied and that the war was unjust, those who voted for Bush certainly did so w/o willfully and knowingly voting for a man who would start an unjust war based on lies.

With Obama, there can be no excuse. It would be a vote with full knowledge of his intent to expand the killing of the unborn.

So, what’s the difference between a “pro-abortionist” and a “pro-abortion extremist”?

I mean, promoting and supporting the murder of an unborn infant is extreme in itself. Or is a “pro-abortion extremist” one who wants to legalize forced abortions on women who don’t want one? Other than Hitler, the ChiComs, and maybe the Islamoterrorists, no one had pushed that policy.

And being that the demonrats have had a pro-abortion plank in their platform for thirty years, if he is considered an “pro-abortion extremist”, then Obama’s entire party and supporters can also be considered extremists.

Les, the “based on lies” part is surely not an assumption. The evidence is there. An easily accessible summation can be found in Bugliosi’s book.
The Westminister Confession’s explanation of the 6th commandment assuredly means that those of us who voted for Bush in ’04 have the blood of innocents on our hands. But, thank God, there is law and gospel.

Sam, could you save the propaganda…thanks.
Dr. Veith, there is no case to make, there is no reason to support a candidate who is ok with the murder of innocents.

T.V – It’s propaganda to merely note that murder is murder? Why are so many of us who call ourselves pro-lifers so comfortable with the death of innocents when death comes by means other than abortion?

Well, I’ve read most of the minutes of the Illinois legislature wherein Obama made his comments. His main point was that the proposed legislation, if passed, would appear to make abortion legal, and he was asking, “Is this what we want the bill to do?” His answer, being a supporter of abortion, is of course, “No.”. It is important to note that Obama would as president continue to be a supporter of the legal right to an abortion. It would seem to me to be a misdirection to take his words (in the Illinois state legislature minutes) in the context his opponents are putting them: that in opposing the bill his motive was to kill babies that survived an abortion. This is not the point he was making or intended to make.

I am opposed to an Obama presidency for many reasons, one of which is his simple and continued support of abortion rights. But let’s not spend a lot of time attacking a straw man. His actual, historic record (including his alarming lack of a record!) is more than enough to make John McCain seem like a very plausible candidate for me.

Here are two articles by people willing to make the case.

http://www.ohdave.net/2008/02/pro-life-pro-obama.html

http://www.quiblit.com/NewsandPolitics/PresidentialElection2008/Democrats/BarackObama/ProLifeProObama/tabid/376/Default.aspx

If incontrovertible evidence, sufficient to convict the president of murder, really did exist, can you doubt that the media would be all over it?

One of the oddities of Obama’s (wide) stance on abortion is that he supports public funding and yet wants to minimize the number of abortions. I don’t doubt his sincerity…but I do question his understanding. As the Guttmacher Institute (the research wing of Planned Parenthood) has shown, public funding through Medicaid increases the abortion rate significantly.

Well, Dr. Veith, I can’t say I’m an Obama supporter, but I can think of a pretty good reason for Obama’s vote. As a legislator, he is a slave to his district. If he represents a district that didn’t want to give an inch to the pro-life camp, then dad-gummit, he’s not going to give them an inch.

Since I think he was representing metropolitan Chicago, I’m fairly confident that he was representing a heavily liberal district. And since here in America leaders grovel to their constituents, Obama groveled to his district’s wishes. When the bill got to the Federal level, the larger population makes the political playing field much milder, and nobody is going to want to take the strong stance that Obama’s district mandated.

A counter example of this is the congressman I interned for a couple of summers ago. The most consistent constituent letter that we received feedback on throughout the whole summer was the expressed desire (actually, it was more like a demand or a threat) to keep cockfighting legal in the state of Louisiana. Our state was the only one in the nation which had not banned the practice. Even though the congressman had other important things to deal with, like the war in Iraq and recovery from Hurricane Katrina, and dealing with the ethics problems in the Congress at the time, considerable time and thought had to be put into the silly issue of cockfighting. The conclusion was this:
“Our nation has a long history of freedom and individual rights. One staunch reminder of that rugged individualism in our state is the hands-off approach that our government takes on the issue of cock-fighting. The Congressman believes in individual freedom and has no plans or reason to change the status quo.”
The district wins again.

Now that Obama is free from the clutches of a crazy district, he’ll probably be much milder. He’ll probably follow his constituency. What is that constituency? I don’t know. That’s a good question. But I doubt it’s worse than NARAL.

Bruce – I have read all the minutes from each of the times the bill came up and it is clear that he made several arguments against the bill one of them being a strained constitutional argument that demonstrates an appalling level of understanding for a man who teaches law. One of the others was an argument that we should extend the principle of viability used to determine when an abortion is a right under Roe to abortion “mistakes” that yield live children. In other words, if a child was accidentally born then Obama would have the doctor determine if this living out-side the womb human being was viable and if the answer is no then that baby could be killed without ramification.

Veith, I’ll grant you that Bush has appointed pro-life judges, and that seems good (though the proof of that yet lies in the future). Indeed, it may be his biggest accomplishment, as far as I’m concerned. But he has “done a great deal for the pro-life cause, ushering in the partial-birth abortion ban and successfully working to get it upheld by the Supreme Court”? Why does Bush get credit for that? He’s not Congress.

You also say that Bush stood “firm in limiting the cannibalization of unborn children for their stem cells.” But McCain supports federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, does he not? Is a vote for him a vote for that, as well?

Sam, two comments;

1. You need to learn the difference between being wrong, and lying. No sane look at the evidence says that Bush lied.

2. Even if he had, there is a just war case to be made for the war with Iraq–that of a dictator whose collusion with the UN to buy weapons and palaces instead of food and medicine was killing 50-100,000 of his own people annually.

Hence, the death toll due to that war is not murder, but rather simply the tragic consequence of war. Read up on your Augustine if you’re still confused.

And Obama? His record speaks for itself, which would indicate why he’s not speaking about his record.

McCain is wrong for supporting embryonic stem cell research. He was wrong to vote for HR 810, even though it was later vetoed by President Bush. McCain attempted to justify his reason by stating, “And one reason being very frankly is those embryos will be either discarded or kept in permanent frozen status.”

That’s excusing murder because someone else will commit the murder anyway. It also exposes the in-vitro fertilization racket as a variation of an abortion clinic where excess (unwanted) human embryos are eventually destroyed or are destroyed in stem cell research.

Lutherans for Life opposes the use of in-vitro fertilization in its Position Statement.

Agreed, Carl (@17). So now the question is if a vote for McCain is still support for embryonic stem cell research.

McCain’s stated position on supporting embryonic stem cell research would indicate that it is.

Carl (@20), okay. Just wondering. I don’t agree with you that voting for a candidate means supporting everything he supports, but at least you’re consistent.

Sam, thanks for the Nat Hentoff link on Obama:
“I’ve got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake,” Obama continued, “I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
Try to reconcile this with Obama’s Father’s Day sermon:
” We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child – it’s the courage to raise one.”
Don’t women need to realize that what makes you a woman is not the ability to have a child, but not to abort it?
There’s a double standard here. Both women and men flee from responsibility in our society.
And it’s disturbing that Obama characterizes his future grandchildren as punishments.
What a sad contrast to his Kansas grandfather.

“I don’t agree with you that voting for a candidate means supporting everything he supports, but at least you’re consistent.”

tODD – You really need to work on correcting your 8th commandment transgression of putting words in a person’s mouth.

My position here or anywhere else has never been that “voting for a candidate means supporting everything he supports.”

What I have said and explained previously is that there are certain political, legislative, and judicial positions I believe are so morally abhorrent and abominable that they cannot be ignored, excused, or overridden by other more desirable or positive positions of a political candidate.

Abortion (as well as embryonic stem cell research) is one of those moral abominations. I agree (but would have preferred a stronger statement) with what the Missouri Synod has said about abortion:

“While presumably recognizing the risks and dangers of such an approach, the Synod has nevertheless concluded that the question of abortion is addressed so clearly by Scripture, that it is such an extraordinary social problem, and that this problem is so fundamentally tied up with what Scripture says about the God-given duty of the state, that failure to speak and under certain circumstances to act would be tantamount to the failure of the German church under Hitler.” [pp.86-7]

Because we elect politicians to legislate, to judge, or to appoint judges on such issues, voting for a political candidate who publicly promotes and supports such an abomination is tantamount to promoting and supporting that abomination.

Other than an immoral policy such as abortion, an informed citizen may vote for a pro-life candidate whose other policy positions the voter supports to varying degrees. And, of course, the voter may still give weighed support (…or not) to the elected politician when he votes for legislation or makes policy with which the voter disagrees.

Bike(@17) Could we also make a case for stopping the Arabic, Muslim militia from raping thousands of women in Darfur? How about the millions who want to leave Iraq? Bush’s administration refuses them entry? What would Augustine have to say about either of these cases?

“How about the millions who want to leave Iraq? Bush’s administration refuses them entry?”

Millions?!? Where did you get that number? Iraq has about 27 million people (2007 est.) with less than a million Christians, and the rest split between Shiite and Sunni Islamists. Even if they want to leave Iraq, there’s no reason for Bush to allow them into this country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_War

According to above article, a just war has four conditions:

” * the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
* all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
* there must be serious prospects of success;
* the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.”

How wonderful if American Christians would, for once, call moral abominations such wars that fail to satisfy these conditions and refuse to describe politicians who support them as “pro life.”

Carl,
I did a quick google search and came up with several articles describing all the people who want to leave Iraq. Here’s one http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6562601.stm. As to your comment “there’s no reason for Bush to allow them into this country.” How about because they are Christians and they are being persecuted. Even Germany considers giving refuge to them because they are Christian. http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/021214.php

Lisa, though I’d disagree with Sam on how the rules for a just war apply in Iraq, the list Sam provides on how to evaluate an action quite well. Darfur is arguable on whether it’s a threat to our country or the “community of nations,” and also about the prospects of success.

For historical reference, there is (1920s National Geographic article on the region is a reference) evidence of this conflict going on for at least two centuries, if not more. So the criterion for success is to administer a “whoopin’ they’ll never forget”; and keep in mind here that the British thought they’d done just that about a century ago.

If I could end it by sending the Marines, I’d have to consider it. I just don’t know what the prospects are for actually ending it, and whether the end result would be worse than what we’ve already got.

yar obama rules yar

u like cats??